Internet Needs 'Hate Spell Checker' - Eric Schmidt

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has visualized a new product: a kind of "hate spell-checker" that detects Internet content that pushes for violence or hate and somehow mutes it.

...We should build tools to help de-escalate tensions on social media — sort of like spell-checkers, but for hate and harassment. We should target social accounts for terrorist groups like the Islamic State, and remove videos before they spread, or help those countering terrorist messages to find their voice. Without this type of leadership from government, from citizens, from tech companies, the Internet could become a vehicle for further disaggregation of poorly built societies, and the empowerment of the wrong people, and the wrong voices.

In his 1964 novel The Simulacra, science fiction great Philip K. Dick described a device like a television that would provide a way to adjust the content to bring it more in line with your preferences. In this case, a presidential speech:

He adjusted the n, the r and b knobs, and hopefully anticipated a turn for the better in the dire droning-on of the speech... however, no change took place. Too many other viewers had their own ideas as to what the old man ought to be saying, Vince realized. In fact there were probably enough other people in this one apartment building alone to offset any pressures he might try to exert on the old man through his particular set. But anyhow that was democracy.
(Read more about Philip K.Dick's adjustable television)

As usual, Phil Dick gets right to the heart of the issue; who is going to "adjust" the content, and what will happen if everyone can do it?